As someone who just spent a year in the trenches between roles, I paused on our story on resume fraud because it could like read like it’s punching down. That’s not what good journalism is supposed to do.
But I’ve been on the other side of it too, most recently when I put the call out for writers to this very website on LinkedIn. I received over 1,000 applications from all over the world. Most of them likely fell across the usual spectrum of qualified to unqualified candidates, but there was no way I could have sifted through all of those to vet them. That’s bad for me, for the company, and for the good candidates that then become harder to identify.
If you’ve ever been a hiring manager, I have a feeling you can relate. I’ve fortunately never made the mistake of actually hiring someone who lied so badly on their resume that they couldn’t do the work. I hope you all have also been that lucky.
Happy 4th to those who celebrate, and I hope everyone enjoys the weekend. Back at it next week.
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As a manager, I’m sure that I’ll have to hire someone, someday, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve assisted a former manager with interviews and hiring decisions, so I have some experience in that department and I’ve had a lot of interviews as well, so I think I have a solid grasp of the questions that actually help sort out those who know and those who don’t.
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I wonder if resume fraud is rising because people are just adding keywords to make it past automated screeners.
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thats what i think too, to get around AI resume scanners and get to the real interview. but i do imagine the AI resume scanners do miss alot of qualified people due to poorly built resumes as well.
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More that they’re using AI to create resumes for specific job openings…
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Automation makes everything easier except honesty. In today’s climate i am sure that even ethical candidates feel the need to “embelish” just to be competitive. Tough when you are trying to compete with people who have no qualms about lying and have false credentials from jurisdictions where it is nearly impossible to verify stated educational certificates or job history.
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Yeah, I was looking for work for three months last year. It was crazy how fast those applications piled in! Over 100 apps in less than an hour? Some of the jobs I had applied for are STILL rolling up with responses to my applications! Of course, now that I don’t need a job nor am interested in changing positions, all the recruiters are calling/emailing almost daily! Like, where were you in my time of need 
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I just fired a tech who could not live up to his resume, references or college degree. Could talk it, couldn’t do it.
This time around, i went back to traditional asks. Cover letter, three verifiable reference, and 5 years of verifiable employment.
Add in I took the job description posted on indeed, my resume and several of my staff members resumes, they are all involved in hiring for our department, loaded into ChatGPT and we got the results we expected, matching formats, key words bold and the exact same cover letter.
74 applicants. 75% all matched AI output. The rest didn’t include what we asked for. The person I hired emailed me a separate cover letter. Then applied through indeed with their resume, completed job application. They got the first interview.
AI is not helping you or us.
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^^^ This ^^^
The kiddo’s are already sharing phrases to beat the AI-bots; keywords & statements that will ensure they are pushed to the fore regardless of the content of the rest of the document.
I have been monitoring the conversations (you never know when you may need a resume refresh) of a particular group, who are into wearable tech & implants, so there is a decent amount of substance to what they are sharing.
In my role there is AI development & I am interested to see that these are opinions based upon experiments conducted against AI, not just fanciful ideas.
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I was asked by one of my clients to review a big stack of resumes.
All were Indian, all were the same age, all were at the same university for the same period of time, all had exactly the same alleged technical skills, all had worked on the same project at Indian Railways and all had the same leisure interests outside of their working hours. Only thing different was their names.
I had been given permission by the client to call the candidates to discuss their skills, it was obvious that all their answers to my questions were being read off a prewritten script. When I told the client their response was “just give me the first ten off the top of the pile”.
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I guess that made your job really easy, though??
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The couple of times I had to hire someone, I learned to include a simple job-related task to help separate the wheat from the chaff. I was hiring entry-level, you could probably go more complex.
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Maybe we need a spin-off thread sharing our best/favorite IT interview questions?
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Lena_M
(Lena_M)
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We had in our job description “Must live or be willing to relocate to Midland/Odessa”, the pay rate, we do not sponsor foreign employees, and very specific requirements.
We were inundated with applications from foreign persons who masked Google numbers, could barely speak English, had unconfirmable data on their resume, and when asked specifically about our Must Haves could not provide detailed answers.
While the electronic age is a wonderful thing, hiring in this environment is exhausting.
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Ever growing issue on resume and even candidate fraud… until now! I have your solution and AI can solve this!
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About three years ago I was hiring for a Systems Technician. Of the candidates I interviewed who looked good on paper, when pressed about certain skills, most could not satisfactorily answer basic questions. I interviewed one guy who appeared to have a lot of experience, the first page of his resume rattled off two columns of skills. During the interview I asked him what his top three were. The answer I got was, “copy, paste, and shortcuts” and those were not in his listed set of skills. It illustrates the point about people who fudge their resumes.
But this raises a couple questions:
Why should anyone have to wade through a thousand resumes to find a qualified candidate? It should be possible to find a qualified someone in the first 30 that applied (first come first to be interviewed). If for some reason that doesn’t pan out contact the next 30.
Aren’t we, those needing to fill a position (not HR, or others), better qualified to determine if a resume appears to hit the right notes for inclusion in granting an interview? After all I would know better than AI, or HR, or my managers who the best candidates are likely to be.
I don’t like the idea of being weeded out by an unqualified human, or some automated process because I didn’t use the right lingo. I want to be judged based on my sills and experience. And it takes a human to recognize that.
I’ve seen some bad resumes that I would normally chuck aside, but figured the skill set looked to be there. I can work with some shortcomings, especially if it is a first time job seeker who is willing to be mentored. I am less forgiving of those whose resumes should be polished at this point in their careers and can’t follow simple instructions. If I ask for a cover letter and you don’t provide one I am automatically going to think you are either lazy or can’t follow simple directions. On the flip side, I will see initiative if you include a cover letter when I don’t ask for one. It demonstrates that you have something more relate than just clicking the upload resume button.
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Exactly, and they need to if they are going to apply to a thousand different jobs in the hopes of cutting through the noise.
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I have felt that pain, having to find a job with very short notice…getting an interview with a company that receives over 100 applications within an hour of posting the ad is hard enough…being top-five in such a pile is almost impossible when everyone has a similar skillset but is local or willing to work for way less.
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I was frustrated with my employer who was only willing to offer a barely entry level salary, but was asking for people with 5 to 10 years experience. That is part of the reason why I got flooded with unqualified candidates. Qualified people know they are worth more, but get undercut because they practically have to give their skills and knowledge away just to get in the door, if they are lucky enough to get an interview.
I have recently been in your position; one avenue I pursued was getting on Upwork. Talk about exploiting people, you are competing with the lowest bidder. Imagine you needing car repairs, going to your mechanic, then telling them what you are willing to pay for new brakes. That is what Upwork is like. In technology, no rando on the Internet should be determining our value for work they need done. Your mechanic sets the price for work, not the customer. You are free to find another mechanic, but the prices won’t vary by as much as they do on a platform like Upwork. I can’t essentially start my career all over on a platform like Upwork hoping to build a reputation by doing an hours worth of work and getting paid practically nothing for it.
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